Self-driving cars (also known as autonomous vehicles or AVs) have been the subject of significant research on their environmental, practical, and lifestyle consequences and their impacts remain debated.
[10] Ford and Volkswagen invested billions in Argo AI but withdraw from the market by 2022, instead focusing on semi-autonomous driving (L2+, L3 under SAE classification).
[5] Driving safety experts predict that once driverless technology has been fully developed, traffic collisions (and resulting deaths and injuries and costs) caused by human error, such as delayed reaction time, tailgating, rubbernecking, and other forms of distracted or aggressive driving would be substantially reduced.
[16][17][18][19][20] Some experts advocate the idea of a "smart city" and claim data sharing infrastructure with AVs could further reduce crashes.
[25] Factors that reduce safety may include unexpected interactions between humans and vehicle systems; complications due to technical limitations of technologies; the effect of the bugs that inevitably occur in complex interdependent software systems; sensor or data shortcomings; and compromise by malicious actors.
[27] Specifically, they argued humans are unlikely to effectively take over during a sudden software failure if an impending decision is required immediately.
[27] Research shows that drivers in automated cars react later when they have to intervene in a critical situation, compared to if they were driving manually.
[28] According to a 2020 Annual Review of Public Health review of the literature, self-driving cars "could increase some health risks (such as air pollution, noise, and sedentarism); however, if properly regulated, AVs will likely reduce morbidity and mortality from motor vehicle crashes and may help reshape cities to promote healthy urban environments.
[34][35] The removal of the steering wheel—along with the remaining driver interface and the requirement for any occupant to assume a forward-facing position—would give the interior of the cabin greater ergonomic flexibility.
[39] Daycares and schools are able to come up with automated pick-up and drop-off systems by car in addition to walking, cycling and busing, causing a decrease of reliance on parents and childcare workers.
Since current vehicles require human actions to some extent, the driving school industry will not be disrupted until the majority of autonomous transportation is switched to the emerged dominant design.
It is plausible that in the distant future driving a vehicle will be considered as a luxury, which implies that the structure of the industry is based on new entrants and a new market.
[41] According to a Wonkblog reporter, if fully automated cars become commercially available, they have the potential to be a disruptive innovation with major implications for society.
The likelihood of widespread adoption is still unclear, but if they are used on a wide scale, policymakers face a number of unresolved questions about their effects.
[48] Caution needs to be taken in acknowledgment to public transportation and that the use may be greatly reduced if automated vehicles are catered to through policy reform of infrastructure with this resulting in job loss and increased unemployment.
A direct impact of widespread adoption of automated vehicles is the loss of driving-related jobs in the road transport industry.
A frequently cited paper by Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey found that automated cars would make many jobs redundant.
[61] With the aforementioned ambiguous user preference regarding the personal ownership of autonomous vehicles, it is possible that the current mobility provider trend will continue as it rises in popularity.
Established providers such as Uber and Lyft are already significantly present within the industry, and it is likely that new entrants will enter when business opportunities arise.
[7] Vehicle automation can improve fuel economy of the car by optimizing the drive cycle, as well as increasing congested traffic speeds by an estimated 8%–13%.
[63][65] Additionally, self-driving cars will be able to accelerate and brake more efficiently, meaning higher fuel economy from reducing wasted energy typically associated with inefficient changes to speed.
[64][35] Appropriate public policies and regulations, such as zoning, pricing, and urban design are required to avoid the negative impacts of increased suburbanization and longer distance travel.
In 2020, Mohan, Sripad, Vaishnav & Viswanathan at Carnegie Mellon University[71] found that the electricity consumption of all the automation technology, including sensors, computation, internet access as well as the increased drag from sensors causes up to a 15% impact on the range of an automated electric vehicle, therefore, implying that the larger battery requirement might not be as large as previously assumed.
The study tested self-parking systems in a variety of vehicles (Lincoln MKC, Mercedes-Benz ML400 4Matic, Cadillac CTS-V Sport, BMW i3 and Jeep Cherokee Limited) and found that self-parking cars hit the curb 81% fewer times, used 47% fewer manoeuvres and parked 10% faster than drivers.
Besides this, privately owned self-driving cars, also capable of self-parking would provide another advantage: the ability to drop off and pick up passengers even in places where parking is prohibited.
[78] However, this may also lead to much-expanded mass surveillance if there is wide access granted to third parties to the large data sets generated.
[86] As collisions are less likely to occur, and the risk for human errors is reduced significantly, the repair industry will face an enormous reduction of work that has to be done on the reparation of car frames.
[citation needed] Military personnel use autonomous vehicles to reach dangerous and remote places on earth to deliver fuel, food and general supplies and even rescue people.
An advantage could be the use of real-time traffic information and other generated data to determine and execute routes more efficiently than human drivers.
In the more distant future, the implication for motels might be that a decrease in guests will occur, since autonomous vehicles could be redesigned as fully equipped bedrooms.